Stopper-fastener.



Patented luIIy 29, |902.'4

J. A. 4JlNES.

STPPER 'FASTENER (Application led Fb. 19, 1901.)

(Allo Model.)

INVENTOR ATT RNEY UNITED STATESl PATENT FFICE;

i JOHN A. JONES, OF NEW YORK, N. Y.

STOPPER-FASTENER.

SPECIFICATION forming part of Letters Patent No. 705,675, dated July 29, 1902. Application led February 19, 1901. Serial No. 47,954. (No model.)

T0 all whom t may concern:

Be it known that I, JOHN A. JONES, a citizen of the United States, and a resident of Manhattan, New York, in the county of New York and State of New York, have invented certain new and useful Improvements in StopperFasteners, of which the `following is a specification.

This invention relates to stopper-fasteners5 and its main object is to provide an improvedV fastener by means of which a cork or other stopper may be held firmly in place in the mouth or neck of a bottle or other container, especially when such bottle is filled with aerated or carbonated liquid and the pressure behind the cork is considerable.

Any stopper-fastener to be commercially successful must beso constructed as to hold the stopper firmly in place and yet be capable of manufacture at a low cost, and my fastener fulfils both these requirements and can be pidity and with a minimum of expense forj labor.

My improved stoppenfastener is especially designed and intended for use in connection with expansible stoppers or corks which are compressed into place against a seat and fill the bottle-neck and also have the air-cells thereof closed by such compression. In carrying out my invention I hold such cork in place by means of a stopper-fastener expansile and contractile substantially in a plane passing through its periphery in order that the area of the fastener may be increased to lill that portion of the neck of the bottle or other container withA which it is'to coperate or decreased to permit the fastener to be removed quickly from such neck. This fastener will form a stop for the outer end of the cork, and the inner end of the cork will lie against its seat, and the fastener will be sprung into position immediately below stopper-holding means, such as an internal flange, in the neck of the bottle. The fastener will preferably be a wire one lying in a single surface or plane and may be resilient in order that it may have a constant tendency to eX- pand and completely till that portion of the neck of the bottle with which it cooperates. The annular flange or rib in the bottle-neck will serve as a stop for limiting the upward thrust ofthe cork due to pressure behind the latter, and the fastener will also be so constructed as to resist this pressure and support and hold the cork iirmlyat the outer side thereof. The cork may be held most advantageously by the fastener and the fastener formed with the least expense when the latter is made from a single piece of wire bent in such a manner as to form two sets or circuits of holding members, one for engaging under the liauge in the neck of the bottle and the other projecting inwardly for engaging the outer end of the cork and resisting the pressure upon thelatter.

In the drawings accompanying this specification and forming part of this application, Figure l is an enlarged plan of abottle neck and stopper having my improved fastener applied thereto. Fig. 2 is a longitudinal section of the same, the section being taken inline 2 2 of Fig. l. Fig. 3` is a perspective view of the fastener applied to a stopper, the latter being shown bydotted lines. Fig. 4 is a perspective View illustrating the manner in which the fastener may be removed bya handoperated extractor, and Fig. 5 is a sectional side elevation of a fixed extractor attached to a counter and illustrating a bottle with my improved stopper-fastener in operative relation with such extractor.

Similar characters designate like parts in the dierent figures of the drawings.

My improved stopper-fastener is intended for use principally in connection with bottles, but may be applied for holding in place stoppers of various kinds and sizes for different types of containers or receptacles: In every case, however, this improved fastener will be expansile and contractile substantially in a plane passing through its periphery in order that it may increase its area and completely fill the bore of the bottle-neckwhen ICO the stopper isl in place, and yet may have its area decreased so as to withdraw from the walls of said bore when the stopper is to be removed from said bottle.

In this preferred form my improved stopper-fastener is made from a single piece of wire and is substantially of the construction shown at F-that is to say, it is substantially an annular member having the body portion thereof in a single plane with a circuit of outwardly-extending holding members or projections, such as 3, which are intended to cooperate with holding means preferably forming part of a bottle-neck, the coperating means being in this case a iiange or rib, such as 4, the inner or under face of which forms a stop-wall, against which the fastener F will be pressed tightly by the stopper after the bottle has been illed and the stopper and its fastener are in position. Byconstructing the fastener in this manner a complete circuit of holding-points relatively close together is provided, the pressure within the bottle is distributed throughout the plane of the fastener instead of being confined to a few points, and hence such pressure is exerted at the ends of a plurality of intersecting diameters. When this fastener is formed from spring-wire, as will usually be the case, it will be evident that said fastener Will tend to fill the bottleneck when slipped into position therein and that there will be a constant outward expansive tendency to resist pressure within the bottle. Moreover, as the pressure from within is practically at right angles to the direction in which the fastener expands it will be apparent that the grip of the latter upon the side wall of the bore in the neck of the bottle will not be appreciably affected by such pressure from within. Owing to the peculiar construction of the fastener it will be seen that a single piece of wire properly bent to form two circuits of deep salient and rentrant bends extends over the major portion of the area of the fastener, and hence of the cork engaged thereby, and exerts a strong pressure against the upper side of the cork, this pressure being sufficient in the case of ashort cork distended laterally by compressing it against a seat to hold the cork in the space into which it is compressed and prevent upward expansion thereof, and it is not possible to accomplish this result with any other laterally-expansible retaining device heretofore used, for the reason, among others, that the area spanned by such devices is insufficient to enable them to exert pressure upon the corks except at the edges thereof, and unless the major portion of the area of the outer end of such a cork is engaged the cork will not be confined to the space occupied by it when compressed into the neck of the bottle by forcing it against its seat, but instead the cork will bulge out at the center, become loose at its edges, and permit the contents of the bottle to escape and air to enter, and therefore such devices are useless when applied to a bottle for the purpose of holding and compressing a short cork against a seat.

In addition to the holding members or projections 3 the fastener is so formed as to have rentrant holding members, such as 5, these corresponding in number in the present case with the external holding members 3 and alternating therewith, so that the fastener embodies two circuits of holding members, one the external circuit for engaging under the Iiange 4 of the bottle-neck and filling the bore of the latter and the other engaging a considerable portion of the outer surface of the stopper and extending a sufficient distance toward the center thereof to prevent the bulging out and release of such stopper. These holding members 5 are preferably formed in the same way as the projections 3 by simply corrugatiug the wire before the completion of the operation of forming the fastener. The outer side of this peripherally-corrugated stopperfastener therefore presents a circuit of alternating projections and spaces or indentations, and the spaces 5' so formed have the additional and important function of providing openings into any one of which a suitable tool may be inserted for the purpose of exti acting the fastener from the bottle, this operation being performed either by means of a simple pointed implement, as shown at e in Fig. 4, or by a counter-extractor, such as that illustrated at E, in which g illustrates a guide for receiving and centering the neck of a bottle with its stopper and stopper fastener, while e represents an extracting device so secured to the back wall of the guide g as to pass into one of the peripheral recesses 5 and remove the fastener when the bottle is turned quickly in the guide. This turning movement serves to force one side of the fastener inward and reduce the area sufficiently to withdraw the points of the holding members 5 from under the rib 4, whereupon the pressure within the bottle will ordinarily blow out the stopper or cork.

My improved stopper-fastener Will usually be employed for holding cork stoppers in place, and it is desirable to secure the stopper-fastener directly to the cork. This I do by providing a fastener having a tang substantially transverse to a plane passing through the periphery of the fastener, this tang being usually fiattened and in this case being a turned-down portion tof one end of the split fastener, the extreme outer end of the tang being flattened out, so as to enable it to grip the cork firmly and prevent accidental pulling out ofthe fastener when the tang is in the cork.

The fastener F will usually be received in an annular recess 7 below the flange or rib 4, and in order that said fastener may be inserted readily in place I prefer to bevel off the lower wall 7 of this recess. Moreover, that portion of the bore of the bottle-neck which receives the stopper or corkC is preferably so shaped as to taper considerably toward the inner end IOO IIO

of the bottle-neck in order that the stopper may be easily extracted or that any pressure behind the cork may blow the latter out easily when the fastener is removed.

It will be noted that the bottle-neck has in the bore thereof a transversewall or seat 8, against which the inner end of the cork C is compressed when it is inserted in place, this operation being performed ordinarily by a corking-machine, which will insert the cork and compress the same into position so as to lill the bottle-neck completely and also close up the air-cells in the cork.

It will be noticed that the fastener is a short somewhat thinvcork, a long cork being unnecessary when the fastener is compressed and held in the manner described, and also that the bottle-neck flares outwardly immediately above the seat 8, which assures the blowing out of the cork when the fastener is removed.

A stopper-fastener constructed in accordance with my present invention has many advantages over those now in use, and chief among these are itsextreme simplicityand cheapness and the ease with which it may be inserted in and removed from the bottle. While this fastener may be constructed in many different Ways and from many different kinds of material and still be within the scope of my invention, I prefer to form it from resilient wire, as when made of wire there is no waste whatever of stock and but few and simple operations are necessary in forming the fastener. In addition to this it will be noted that a fastener formed from wire in substan tially the manner herein described has great strength notwithstanding the small amount of material contained therein, as when the periphery thereof is corrugated every point thereof forms an arch`,and thus the entire fastener comprises two circuits of concentric and connected arches, giving a maximum of strength and stability with a minimum of material used.

In order that the neck of the bottle may present a finished appearance,a disk (not shown) of cardboard or other material may be inserted in the mouth of the bottle-neck and rest upon the Iiange 4, thus covering the stopper andits fastener. This disk may of course have any suitable matter printed, embossed, or otherwise displayed thereon for the purpose of indicating the nature and source of the contents.

Having thus described my invention, what I claim is-a l. The combination with a bottle neck adapted to receive a stopper and having internal projecting holding means and a seat, of a flexible stopper, and a substantially flat peripherally corrugated wire stopper fastener in engagement with theunder side of said holding means and with the outer endof said stopper and expansile and contractile substantially in its own iiatwise plane and having a multiplicity of deep corrugations forming acircuit of deep salient bends disposed close together and a circuit of deep reentrant bends alternating with said salient bends said circuits of bends constituting a pressure-resisting and pressure-exerting ele* ment extending over the major portion of the outer end of the stopper and serving to hold the stopper in position under all conditions of pressure.

2. The combination with a bottle neck adapted to receivea iiexible stopper' and having an internal retaining-groove and a seat, of a stopper, and a substantially flat peripherally-corrugated wire stopper-fastener seated in said groove "and in engagement with the outer end of said stopper and eXpansile and contractile substantially in its own iiatwise plane and having amultiplicity of deep corrugations forming a circuit ofdeep salient bends disposed close together and a circuit of deep rentrant bends alternating with said salient bends such circuits of bends constituting a pressure-resisting and pressure-exerting element extending over the major por tion of the outer end of the stopper and serving to hold the stopper in position under all conditions of pressure. y

3. The combination with a bottle neck adapted to receive a stopper and having internal holding means and a seat, of a substantially flat peripherally-corrugated wire stopper-fastener in engagement with the under side of said holding means and with the outer end of the stopper and expansile and contractile substantially in its own iiatwise plane and adapted to compress and hold the stopper in position under all conditions of pressure, and a `flexible stopper between and in engagement with the stopper-fastener and said seat.

l. The combination with a bottle neck adapted to receive a stopper and having an internal retaining-groove and a seat, of a substantially iiat peripherally-corrugated wire stopper-fastener seated in said groove and in engagement with the outer end of the stopper and expansile and contractile substan tially in its own latwise plane and adapted to compress and hold the stopper in position under all conditions of pressure, and a flexible stopper between and in engagement with the stopper-fastener and said seat.

5. The combination with a bottle neck adapted to `receive a stopper and having a short stopper-receiving bore with an annular groove at the 'upper end and a seat at the lower end thereof, of a substantially iiat removable annular stopper-fastener seated in said groove and expansile and contractile substantially in its own fiatwiseplane and adapted to compress and hold the stopper down against its seat under all conditions of pressure, and a short expansible stopper filling said bore and located below said groove and held in place between said stopper-fastener and said seat.

6. VThe combination with a bottle neck adapted to receive a stopper and having a IOO IIO

short tapered stopper-receiving bore with an annular groove at the upper end and a seat at the lower end thereof, of a substantially flat removable annular stopper-fastener seated in said groove and expansile and contractile substantially in its own flatwise plane and adapted to compress and hold a stopper down against its seat under all conditions of pressure, and a short expansible stopper filling said tapered bore and located below said groove and compressed in place between the stopper-fastener and said seat.

7. The combination with a bottle neck adapted to receive a stopper and having a short stopper-receiving bore with an annular groove at the upper end and a seat at the lower end thereof, of a substantially flat removable internal stopper-fastener seated in said groove and expansile and contractile substantially in its own tlatwise plane and having a circuit of holding members in engage,- ment withthe stopper and with the walls of said groove and adapted to compress and hold the stopper down against its seat under all conditions of pressure, and a short expansible stopper filling said stopper-receiving bore and located below said groove and compressed in place between the stopper-fastener and said seat.

8. The combination with a bottle neck adapted to receive a stopper and having a short stopper-receiving bore with an annular groove at the upper end and a seat at the lower end thereof, of a substantially flat removable internal wire stopper-fastener seated in said groove and expansile and contractile substantially in its own flatwise plane and having two circuits of holding members one engaging the walls of said groove and the other engaging the stopper and adapted to compress and hold the stopper down against its seat under all conditions of pressure, and a short expansible stopper filling said stopperreceiving bore and located below said groove and compressed in place between the stopperfastener and said seat.

Signed at New York, in the county of New York and State of New York, this 16th day of February, A. D. 1901.

JOHN A. JONES.

Witnesses:

C. CHAMPION, C. S. CHAMPION. 

